‘The Witcher’ Showrunner Lauren Hissrich on Giving Henry Cavill a “Heroic” Send-Off

The Witcher and Henry Cavill’s fandom is currently experiencing quite a few tribulations! In October this year, the lead star announced his departure from the franchise after Season 3. In his stead, Liam Hemsworth will be taking on the beloved role of Geralt of Rivia alongside Anya Chalotra as Yennefer and Freya Allan’s Ciri. While the exact reason for Cavill’s exit is being kept tightly under wraps by Netfix and the actor, recently showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich spoke about giving him a “heroic send-off” as well as teased what’s in store for Hemsworth’s iteration of the character.

After the cliffhanger ending of Season 2 where Ciri’s father was revealed to be the White Flame, stakes are high in the new season. Geralt has to do everything to protect his adoptive daughter and help her to control her magic. Cavill, an avid gamer and fan of Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher universe, has made every effort to stay true to the source material. That’s one thing fans admire about him, “Henry has given so much to the show and so we want to honor that appropriately,” the showrunner revealed to Entertainment Weekly.

In the upcoming season, we’ll see Geralt making every move to keep Ciri safe. Hissrich reveals that the writer’s room took a lot of inspiration from Sapkowski’s Time of Contempt which has been adapted in the upcoming season. “Time of Contempt gave us so many big action events, plot points, defining character moments, and huge reveals of a big bad. There’s so much to do that we were able to stick really, really closely with the books.” In a separate interview, it was revealed that Ciri and Geralt will head to Shaerrawedd, an ancient palace, which is where the two of them had a conversation about neutrality.

Geralt’s big turn is about giving up neutrality and doing anything that he has to do to get to Ciri. And to me, it’s the most heroic sendoff that we could have, even though it wasn’t written to be that.

Certainly, Cavill deserves a proper send-off as he shouldered the series effortlessly and has been the cornerstone of the streamer’s universe of monsters and men, which has now spun into prequel series with The Witcher: Blood Origin. As for Hemsworth’s stint as the new Witcher in town starting Season 4, the showrunner teased, “Geralt has a new mission in mind when we come back to him in season 4.” Further adding, “He’s a slightly different Geralt than we expected. Now, by the way, that’s an understatement.”

The Witcher Season 3 is expected to drop sometime in Summer, 2023 on Netflix. You can learn more about Cavill’s exit below:

[via]